Good morning 🙂

Picture the scene it was Saturday morning, it was time to go for a run, I stepped out of the door only to discover it was raining. Ok, yes,  could have discovered this by looking out of a window, but for some reason I didn’t so the rain was a surprise to me! The appropriate response to this is: eeeek it is raining, I’ll go and find an inside workout to do. What did I do? I said to myself, sod it…I’ll go anyway, it is only rain!!??!

What am I turning into?

Buoyed by the crazy enthusiasm this new found disregard for rain brought about, I decided to push the boat out and try running in a new place. I headed down to the village 5 mins away which has a newly(ish) developed complex called jubilee fields which has a lake and cricket and football pitches and a “trim trail” which is basically a path with occasional pieces of equipment like bars and such along the way. When I arrived there, I discovered that there were lots of cars in the car park…indicating that there would be many people around, I couldn’t see any in the trim trail area, but I assumed they would be lurking behind trees or enthusiastically doing pull ups on the bar just waiting to ambush me when I ran…

My new found confidence abandoned me and I drove over to Southwater to run on the downs link path where I normally run…where I met lots of people, but it was ok because the route was familiar! I am aware as I write this of how daft that sounds!

I stretched before I went then I set off with my new slightly extended interval program going. I had no time constraints so I thought I would have a go at adding a little bit on to my runs. and allowing myself 1/2 a min more on each recovery. It turned out to be quite successful, I ran the first two run intervals, but had to add in extra (short) walk breaks in the third, but this was ok, I was quite pleased. I was slow mind you…I think my legs were tired, and I was tired which slowed me down, but I don’t mind, I am looking for improvement whether it is in overall run time or distance or speed or in fact motivation!

The positives and improvement were continuous run time and motivation…I went when it was raining for goodness sake…this is a definite improvement!!

I went 4.3km…I was happy with this 🙂 my pace was probably a tiny bit faster than it says as I stopped twice (once to stretch my calves and once to take a photo) but even taking that into account, I still wasn’t fast, but never mind, at least I got out there and ran!

And…not only did I get out there and run…I actually quite enjoyed myself! It was hard work, I am still a long way from being able to do anything that could be described as an easy run, but I did enjoy it. People smiled and said hello and I was out ing the fresh air and I had my iPhone with its sarcastic music choice to keep my amused! the most amusing was the choice of Van Halen’s Jump during my cool down walk…where I discovered that when Van Halen says Jump….you have to obey! No matter that there are dog walkers and children on bikes giving you odd looks!

Other things I discovered on this run:

Autumn is starting…trees are still mainly green, but the leave are starting to go…

 

 

 

My shoes are still pink from the colour run…it doesn’t seem to be wearing off!

 

I get odder looks when stretching after a run that you do while running, I suppose many people wait to stretch until they get home…

On the whole a pretty successful Saturday morning, and over the course of the rest of the Saturday I walked another 4 – 5 km so…

Day 99 Complete 😀